


The Long Walk

by Aethelflaed



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Ancient Rome, Angst, Aromantic Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aromantic Crowley (Good Omens), End of the World, Fall of Rome, Gen, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Death, Melancholy, Noah's Ark, Optimism, Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens), Present Tense, Reflection, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Walking through history, pessimism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelflaed/pseuds/Aethelflaed
Summary: The sands stretched away from the Walls of Eden, eternally in either direction. Endless empty wasteland. Unrelenting heat filled the air, beaming down from the sun, up from the dunes. The kind of heat that nothing could live in.Through the endless empty wasteland walked an angel and a demon, side-by-side.--A short saga of the world, two observers, and the question: what is it all for?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 64
Collections: The Aro Way Challenge 2020





	The Long Walk

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by my prompt for the Its the Aro Way challenge (Aromantic Aziraphale and Crowley, milestones of the original best friends in history), and was written about two days after my self-isolation started. It got...a bit dark, and very melancholy.
> 
> CW for the tone - though this story doesn't *contain* death, it is very much *about* death, also life, and hope.

The sands stretch away from the Walls of Eden, eternally in either direction. Endless empty wasteland. Unrelenting heat fills the air, beaming down from the sun, up from the dunes. The kind of heat that nothing can live in.

Through the endless empty wasteland walk an angel and a demon, side-by-side.

“Seems an awful waste,” says the demon. “Build a whole world with nothing in it. If the Almighty is so powerful, why not make everywhere like Eden?”

“Eden was special,” says the angel, sadly. He hasn’t been cast out, not in the way the humans and the demon have. But the Garden’s time is over, and he can move on, or fade with it. “Eden was perfect.”

“Yeah, a perfect prison.” The demon rolls his eyes. “Too _perfect_ for the likes of me.”

“No, not perfect like that. Perfectly balanced.” The angel holds out a hand, tipping it side to side. “The weather, the animals, all life, everything hung perfectly from the slightest thread. The was no…no room for deviation, you might say. No room for evil, yes, but also for good. For knowledge. For choice or free will. Once the humans had that, they had to leave. Even if they stayed, it all would have fallen apart.”

The demon considers as they walked. “That’s your ‘ineffable’ explanation?”

A shrug. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Not really.” The demon looks at their surroundings. “And it still seems an awful waste. Sending the humans out here to die.”

“Oh, I don’t think it will come to that. They may yet find something outside the Garden. Look.”

Ahead of them, a shape bursts from the shade of a dune, a small lizard, mottled brown, running for all it's worth to cower in the next shadow. “There’s still life,” says the angel. “Still a chance.”

A thousand years.

Frozen winters.

Drought-filled summers.

A Flood covers the land, and recedes.

Through lands scoured clear of any trace of life walk an angel and a demon, side-by-side.

“Not much of a chance, if our sides keep interfering,” the demon says, watching the brown river rush past between barren banks.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” the angel chides.

A snort. “You’d say the same if it were my side that did this.” Silence, apart from footfalls in the mud. “Well, go on. Tell me it’s all part of the Plan. I can practically _hear_ you thinking it.”

“Well it is. I might not understand it, but it must be.”

“Some Plan. A thousand years of struggle and toil, for what? Just to be destroyed like that.”

“Nonsense.” The angel points overhead at a flitting dove. The first bird either of them has seen since the rains began. “It isn’t over yet. And we can’t know until it’s over.”

Two thousand more years.

Cities rise.

Cities fall.

Sodom.

Thera.

Troy.

They walk together through the empty streets of what had once been the world’s greatest city, past shattered walls and burned out homes and the remains of a wooden horse.

“They’ve learned from you,” the angel says, an edge of bitterness.

“They’ve learned from _us,”_ the demon corrects, but without rancor.

The angel pauses to study the remains of a temple, altar within shattered, blood spattered across the floor from more than sacrificial animals. “Either way, they surpassed their teachers.”

“They did.” In the distance, past once-impregnable gates that will never close again, high-masted ships depart. Not the attackers, returning victorious to kingdoms that have been destroyed in other ways; these are the survivors, in search of a new home. “Do you suppose they’ll do any better the next time?”

“We must hope,” said the angel, looking where white flowers grow through the cracks in the path. “We must always hope.”

Phoenicia.

Persia.

Carthage.

Rome.

Empires grow.

Empires topple.

They walk, tracing the path of an aqueduct, still valiantly carrying water to an empty city, miles away.

“You know, I really thought they had something this time,” sighs the angel, watching the rodents burrow beneath the monumental stones.

The demon tosses his head, looking at the endless span of arch on arch, crossing a continent. “They did.”

“Next time,” the angel says, with confidence he doesn’t feel. “Next time they’ll get it right.”

“They will. For a time.”

“Oh, there is no need for you to be…pessimistic,” the angel snaps.

“It’s not pessimism, it’s – oh, never mind.” The demon saunters a little faster. “I think I see a village up ahead. Probably have something to drink there.”

Wars rage, brought by raiders or kings or desperate humans.

Famine crawls from town to town, spurred on by locusts, by ice storms, by greed.

Pestilence crosses the world again and again.

Death. Death. Death.

An angel kneels in the street, holding a human’s hand. The human isn’t moving.

A demon materializes from the shadows behind him. “Give it a rest. You can’t do anything for him now.”

“I know.” He stands up. “But I had to try.”

All around them, the city stands silent. Not empty. Humans locked in their homes, afraid to go out, afraid to be too close, afraid the plague may catch them, too.

“He should have fled,” the angel says sadly. “Left the city while he still had a chance.”

“Not everyone can run,” the demon points out.

“I know.” After a time, he walks again, the demon beside him. Past empty fountains, abandoned marketplaces, homes boarded shut. “The city has changed so much. Do you remember that lovely restaurant we used to visit?”

“Burned down. Almost a thousand years ago.” The demon shrugs. “Vandals. Or Goths, maybe.”

“Ah. Pity.”

From a nearby alley, the stench of death. The demon tries to look away, only to find himself meeting the angel’s eyes.

“You won’t find anyone in there.”

“I know. But I have to try.”

The demon sighs, but follows him in. “I hate this century.”

“You always say that, dear.”

New continents.

New art styles.

New wars.

New technologies.

Until one afternoon the world ends – and is made anew.

And only one small group of humans will ever know – and an angel and a demon, stepping off a bus together at three in the morning. The city isn’t empty, merely asleep.

Not ready to go inside just yet, they walk around the block, listening to foxes rummage through rubbish bins, watching lights flick on, here and there, where another insomniac has risen from bed.

“What do you suppose comes next?” the angel wonders, when the silence becomes too much. “For the humans.”

“Dunno.” The demon tosses his head, hands stuck in his pockets. “More of the same, I would guess. Life, death, love, hate, good, bad. Human stuff.”

“But something has to change,” the angel insists. “The world nearly ended for…for Heaven’s sake,” he finishes, voice full of irony. “But if it was the Plan, it must mean something. What’s it all leading to?”

“We might find out. Depends what comes next. For us.”

“Ah.” The angel slows. Stops. “Do you…do you suppose they’re very angry?”

The demon turns to face him with a snort. “What do _you_ think?”

“I think…I think…” His hands straighten his waistcoat, smooth his tie. “I think that whatever comes next, however much time we have…I should like to carry on as we always have.” His tone is light, his eyes searching.

A slow nod. “Yeah.” The demon reaches out, gently squeezes the angel’s shoulder. “Yeah. Me too.”

When they start walking again it is, as always, side-by-side.

“And, you know, I would like to see how it all turns out.”

“You and me both, Angel.”

More time passes.

The world grows old. Ancient.

Another war. The Really Big One. Bigger than any seen on Earth or in Heaven.

Everybody fights.

Everybody loses.

When it is over – when all things are over – there is nothing left.

No world, no Paradise, no eternal torment. No Hosts of Heaven, no Legions of Hell.

No humans, no Satan, no God.

Just an endless, eternal expanse of nothing and, somewhere in the featureless plane, an angel in white, kneeling, alone.

Slowly, the darkness around him resolves into another shape. The demon steps forward, fighting back a smile. “There you are. You survived.” As if he hasn’t been frantically searching. “Thought as much. You’re very hard to kill.”

The angel doesn’t respond.

“It sure was a mess, though, wasn’t it?” The demon shakes his head ruefully. “Should have expected it, really, but right at the end when –”

“I was wrong.” The angel hasn’t moved, eyes still locked on the endless Nothing. “Thousands of years, millions of sunrises, and for what? There was never any point.”

“No, Angel.” The demon kneels beside him, rests a hand on his shoulder. “I mean, yeah, you were wrong. Because the ending was _never_ the point. It was the journey – all those millions of days, filled with love and hate and smiling children and fighting with friends and favorite foods and annoying songs and struggles and choices and…and _life._ Everything they never would have had if they’d stayed in the Garden. That was the point. That was always the point.”

“Perhaps,” the angel tries to smile. “It was lovely, wasn’t it? While it lasted?”

“Yeah. It really was.” The demon helps him to his feet. “And, you know, it’s not completely gone.”

He waves a hand, long fingers trailing through the void as they had at the beginning of time, helping to shape the stars. He gathers together every atom, every wisp of matter, closer, closer, into a ball. The angel presses his hands into it, and together they compress it, tighter, denser, until –

A spark. From neither. From both.

BANG.

The void fills once more.

With chaos.

With potential.

With light.

The demon looks around, nodding with approval. “What do you think, Angel? Time for another walk?”

He gazes out at the disks of galaxies forming in the expanding cloud of debris. “Do you…do you think things will be different this time?”

A shrug. “Only one way to find out.”

Through the glowing crucible of a newborn universe walk an angel and a demon, side-by-side.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This fic is also a celebration of reaching 666 followers on my (primarily Good Omens) [Tumblr.](https://aethelflaedladyofmercia.tumblr.com/) I write just about everything from fluff to angst, though definitely more on the angst side, with lots of meta discussion - so follow me for more!
> 
> History notes:  
> I'd normally list all the major historical references, but there were a lot, in rapid succession.
> 
> I will note that the first abandoned city was Troy; archaeology suggests it was not so thoroughly destroyed and was occupied again, so I was taking a note from Neil Gaiman's approach to the King Arthur scene: go with the mythology, not the history. If you've read the Aeneid, you'll recognize the last departing ships as that of Aeneas and his followers, off to found the Latin peoples and ultimately the city of Rome.
> 
> (The aqueduct walk I envisioned being somewhere in modern France, shortly after the fall of the Western Roman Empire; and the plague-ridden city is 14th century Rome. Crowley mentions the Goths and the Vandals, two Germanic "barbarian" peoples credited with sacking Rome in the 5th century; the actual history is, of course, not so simple. Please note that I did not pick three Rome-related examples as any sort of commentary on the state of Italy right now, but because I have a degree in Classical History, and when I think about the rise and fall and cycle of civilization, that's where my mind naturally goes.)
> 
> Theories of the end of the universe include the possibility that matter will continue expanding until it all falls apart and/or all energy is expended, or that everything will collapse in on itself and create another Big Bang. I do not know enough science to tell you which is more likely. And Crowley has his own thoughts on the matter, I think.


End file.
